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Konglishman
Joined: 14 Sep 2007
Location: Nanjing
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Radius
Joined: 20 Dec 2009
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 Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 6:53 am Post subject: |
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| Short answer is heck no. |
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Konglishman
Joined: 14 Sep 2007
Location: Nanjing
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| Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 8:03 am Post subject: |
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| Well, China is a rising industrial power whereas it sometimes seems lately that the USA is on the start of a long decline. So, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the idea. |
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northway
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 8:04 am Post subject: |
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| Since when have Americans shown any desire to learn a language? |
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Konglishman
Joined: 14 Sep 2007
Location: Nanjing
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| Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 8:19 am Post subject: |
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| northway wrote: |
| Since when have Americans shown any desire to learn a language? |
Generally speaking, it simply has not been a necessity for Americans. But the question is, will this begin to change in the future when forces such as globalization become even more powerful. |
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nathanrutledge
Joined: 01 May 2008
Location: Marakesh
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| Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 4:59 pm Post subject: |
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Mandarin is spoken as the language of one country, and it's not even the entire country's population that speaks it. English is spoken by the big 7, as well as a few countries in Africa, India, Hong Kong (part of CHINA), etc.
China might be a rising power, and the second largest economy, but the US is still WAY ahead of China (what, 1000 dollars per person per year vs 35,000 dollars per person per year?) in nominal and real terms. Considering the population of China, their nominal numbers would have to grow four times larger than the US to just be even, and they are at about a tenth of the US now.
Even IF China could overtake the US, they cannot overtake the combined output of US/Canada/UK/Ireland/Australia/South Africa/India/etc.
Mandarin doesn't have a native alphabet.
Sure, in Korea and the rest of Asia, Mandarin as a second language is a great idea - China is the largest trading partner of many of the countries in the region, their languages are based in part on Chinese, they have Chinese characters in Hanja/Kanji/etc to go off of. But as a serious competitor to English? No way. |
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